


First Meal

by PrickleBrickleCitrus



Series: There Are No Stars in the Sky Here [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Other, Spoilers for Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider, friendly conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 07:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrickleBrickleCitrus/pseuds/PrickleBrickleCitrus
Summary: So, what's it like?





	First Meal

For all his chatter and babbling when in the Void, Billie is surprised that the newly human Outsider is unbearably quiet. Even when they make it to the surface of the mines, the sun setting and the world bathed in pink and orange hues, he has nothing to say.

When she looks back to him, eyes fixed on everything but her, she realizes he doesn’t need to say anything. Billie can see it in his eyes, all the wonder and confusion of a child mixed with that thousand-yard stare. A man seeing the world for the first time, with eyes that have seen more than any other. A walking contradiction.

He glances at her for a brief moment, lips parted as if ready to say something but he abruptly turns away. That confusion, again, flits across his face. So she turns around and keeps walking, accepting his silence among the already silent ruins of the quarry. Billie doesn’t want to force him to speak, though she feels she is afraid of what he might say. Without the sight granted to him from the Void, she wonders what he would say at all.

So they continue on, trudging away from the Shindaerey mines as far as they can before darkness sets in, before the darkness of the forest overtakes even the light from the city below. They camp in a small outcrop near one of the cliffs, a tiny fire between them and only a few tins of fish to spare.

Billie hands him one. His eyes flicker between her and the tin, hesitant.

“It’s all I have, if you want it.” She pauses, licks her lips. “I didn’t bring much. Just enough for one person.”

The rest of her words go unspoken. _I wasn’t planning on saving you. I wasn’t planning on changing my mind._

Though still unsure, he reaches out and takes the tin. She pulls the second tin from her bag and opens it eagerly.

“Thank you.”

Billie is halfway through chewing when she looks up at him. She knows he is thanking her for the food, but it feels like more. His eyes, no longer terrifyingly black and endless, are more expressive than the rest of him.

So is his body language.

“You’re welcome.”

Words between them came easier when Billie was ready to end his existence. She would have gladly enjoyed his silence every time he showed up, but now she finds the crackling of the fire and crunching of tin cans uncomfortable. She never cared for small talk or useless pleasantries of conversation, but she has questions. Perhaps more than she cares for, but they have to start somewhere.

“Not much of a first meal, is it?” She grins around her own fingers in her mouth, licking them clean of sauce and brine.

The Outsider merely shrugs. He, too, licks his fingers, and Billie finds the action incredibly strange. A very human thing for a man who has been everything but for several millennia.

“Considering I wasn’t offered a last meal upon my death, this tin of fish is the most delicious thing I’ve had in over four thousand years.”

It’s a somewhat cheeky response, to which Billie can’t help but smirk. The Outsider’s lips turn up just a hair as he reaches in to the tin for the last little briney fish, devouring the whole thing in one bite.

Tossing her own tin aside, she asks, “So what’s it like?”

He stops chewing and eyes her.

“You know… being human again. What’s it like? You spent thousands of years chained to that place, and now you’re free. Surely there’s something to be said about all… this.” She gestures to the world around them.

He turns his gaze to the fire, thoughtful. When he looks up again, his eyes focus on the way the light illuminates the cliff behind her in red and orange light.

“It’s like…” He stops, sighs. “It’s like admiring a painting. When you are far enough away, you can see the whole picture. You see the characters, or the landscape. You see how all the pieces fit together, how each individual brush stroke has made this larger image, but you can never see the details. You don’t see the individual brush strokes when you’re standing from several feet away.”

Billie nods. “But now you do?”

He hums in agreement. “Something like that. I saw… beyond. Like the world and all its people were one great image, being painted as I watched. But now…”

He stops, tearing his eyes away from the cliff to stare at the nails of fingers. His face contorts just a little, like trying to figure out just where they came from. “But now, it’s as if I’ve stepped close to the painting, and all I can see are brush strokes. The bigger picture is missing, because it isn’t there. Not anymore.”

“Do you wish you could step back again, see the bigger picture?”

He’s quick to answer. “No.”

He doesn’t say any more. Billie can tell from the way he answers that there is more, much more, he wishes to say but won’t. She can’t know what being bound to the Void feels like, but she can see in him that there is something darker to it than just pictures and pieces. There is more, but it isn’t her place to force it from him. In time, perhaps, but right now there’s just a kid with old eyes and nothing to go home to.

“So,” she starts, shifting closer to his side of the fire, “what will you do now?”

He looks to her, searching her face in thought before he smiles and shrugs. The irony of his words is not lost on her.

“I don’t know.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Outsider licks his fingers after every meal and you can pry this headcanon from my cold, dead hands thank you very much.


End file.
